A NSDate object always uses UTC as time reference, but the string representation of a date is not neccessarily based on UTC timezone.

Please note that UTC is not (only) a timeZone, It is a system how time on earth is measured, how it is coordinated (The C in UTC stands for coordinated).
The NSDate is related to a reference Date of midnight 1.1.1970 UTC, altough slightly wrongly described by Apple as 1.1.1970 GMT.

In the original question the last word timeZone is not perfect.

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